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This time a "liberal" judge has gone too far

Tue, 04/25/2006 - 14:01 — charlie.collins

A kid wore a t-shirt to high school that proclaimed ""Homosexuality is shameful", a teacher thought the shirt was 'inflammatory, violated the school's dress code and "created a negative and hostile working environment for others."' The teacher gave the student a dress code violation and the principal told the kid he could not wear the shirt to school anymore.

The kid sued, and lost. The kid appealed and lost (in the 9th circuit - the "most liberal" district in the country, supposedly).

Court Lets Schools Ban Inflammatory T-Shirts

Liberal or not, this judge is just plain wrong. As much as I disagree with the assertion that being gay is shameful, the kid has every right to proclaim his own stupidity on a t-shirt and wear it proudly. Free speech? The shirt may be disruptive and may make some people uncomfortable, but so what, the right to free speech is far more important than either. (And in this case I doubt the thing is even very disruptive - people can have different views and still walk down the same halls - at least hopefully they can or we have a lot bigger problems than dress codes.)

It's another sad day for our legal system when a kid can't express his non profane and non violent religious views on a shirt (no matter who agrees or disagrees with the views).

Comments

Wed, 04/26/2006 - 07:57 — cooper (not verified)

RE: This time a "liberal" judge has gone too far

I think this goes to a larger issue of how we treat kids, myself.

It has been established that kids in school don't have "rights" like a person. Still worse, especially post-Columbine/Paducah/etc those rights have receeded even farther than they were when I was a student. Kids don't have a right to speech, privacy. Even cultural elements now label a kid a threat -- don't listen to the wrong music or we will think you are potential mass murderer. Don't play around with physics toys that make a loud noise or you are a terrorist.

Then, of course, we reinforce this with the constant threat of the "other": pedophiles on myspace, non-stop Holloway coverage, etc.

I think it is really sad how we treat our kids these days.

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